Trackside Tuesday: A 2014 Photo Retrospective - Part 2

I’m going to start the 2nd and final part of my 2014 photo retrospective with the image above of Marc Marquez. Taken at Woodcote during Sunday mornings warm up for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

Woodcote was one of the most exhilarating sections of track I shot last year. The sensation of speed as the riders came past, back wheel sliding, only feet away was indescribable.

A beautiful sunny evening on the Isle of Man and Michael Dunlop blasting onto the Cronk-y-Voddy straight on one of his first laps on the factory BMW.

Another exhilarating place to photograph racing motorcycles. Unlike the Marc Marquez picture above, you don’t need a press pass to go there.

I’m not 100% sure who the Moto2 riders are but there’s no mistaking where the picture was taken. Just before taking this picture I was on the other side of the track, just to the left of the sun. I had to hot foot it around the track to get into place as the Qatari sunset does not last very long.

Valentino Rossi at the test after the Catalan Grand Prix. One of my favourite track images of Rossi and an image that highlights the work he did adapting his riding style to try to challenge Marc Marquez.

A behind the scenes picture of Bradley Smith from the Day of Champions at Silverstone. Bradley was waiting back stage with Pol Espargaro and started messing about behind the stage backdrop.

I didn’t appreciated until this year what a character Bradley is. Any UK readers who watched his appearance on BT Sport’s MotoGP Tonight programme would have seen what a great sense of humour he has.

Hopefully we’ll get to see more of that in 2015.

Guy Martin at Church Bends during the Southern 100 road races on the Isle of Man. Not as well known as the TT, which is a shame, as the Southern is a fantastic meeting, and one of my favourites of the year. It’s not a track for the faint hearted though as it’s lined by walls pretty much the whole way round.

Another image from the post Catalan Grand Prix test. What I find most impressive about this picture is the braking power Marc Marquez can produce from just one finger. If I remember correctly he braked a little too late this time though and overshot the corner.

John McGuinness at the top of Barregarrow on a 500cc Paton at the Classic TT. Disappointingly McGuinness is yet to complete a race at the Classic TT. Hopefully he’ll be back in 2015 to put that right.

Cal Crutchlow getting his first taste of the factory Honda during the beautiful late afternoon sun at Valencia. I could have picked any one of the dozens of images from this corner. I went with this one because you can see the concentration behind the visor.

Jorge Lorenzo on his way to his first win of the season at Aragon. A nice action image that benefits massively from the clear visor. I don’t think it would have quite the same impact if he was using a black visor.

Valentino Rossi signing autographs behind the garages at Indianapolis. Probably my favourite picture of Valentino from last year.

My first time shooting MotoGP from pit lane and one of my favourite pit lane images of the year. This effect was acheived with a flash set to fire just as the cameras shutter was closing.

Tony Goldsmith is an Isle of Man based freelance motorcycle racing photographer specializing in the Isle of Man TT races. He has also covered selected rounds of the British Superbike Championship and MotoGP. His online archive is available at www.tgfphotos.com and he can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.